Just Canvas and Paint
by frankiebabe29
Summary: Just a painting. just a picture. but oh she was so much more than that when he looked at her. HHr kina. oneshot.


A/n I seem to be only putting all my one-shots up. Oh well. Here's another tragedy. Hhr my fav. Enjoy AND REVIEW!!! any and all flamers will be used to full my emo depression writing.

disclaimer- I own nothing

**Just Canvas and Paint**

She is just a painting. Just paint and canvas and brush work and water and bits of magic thrown in to make her seem alive. Yes just a picture, just a painting- but- oh-, she was so much more than that when he looked at her.

Little is known about wizarding portraits. She knows that simple because Hermione Granger knew it. But she is not Hermione Granger. Not even the shadow or memory of her. More like an imprint, an crude impression who knows what she knew, keeps her characteristics, her flaws. But she is not real. Not alive. Not that she ever told him that. Couldn't bear to see the look on his face if she did.

When he was younger, just after she- well- Hermione died, he came almost every day. At first he did not speak, just sat in front of her portrait with a look of such anguish on his face and she never knew what to say. Then one day after the usual silence he had look up suddenly and asked her what she remembered of her life, and when he came after that he always had questions of her.

Some of them were hard, and she never knew how to express some the emotions having never felt them, having no concept of what they meant, but she seem to bring him comfort and that was all that really mattered -and sometimes when they spoke she could almost see why she-why Hermione had loved him.

She never saw anyone else there not in all her years on that wall and she never knew if it was because he sent them away or if there was simply no one left to come but knew better than to ask. She often wondered if he was lonely. And sometimes she she thought softly _he has me _before scolding herself, because she wasn't Hermione Granger even if he thought she was. She wasn't even real. Jut a paining. Just a picture. But -oh- she was so much more than that when he looked at her.

He came less and less as the years passed, and she became used to waking up suddenly in the night to find him there watching her- his knurled old hands twisting at his sides and lined face tight and his expressive eyes hardly changing at all. And now when they spoke it was him telling her about all that had happened with a gaze that held nothing that was before it now, yet many things that once were. And she watched and and listened to his words in silence and tried to imagine what it was like to be alive.

And then of course one day he stopped coming and truth be told she had been expecting it for a long time. And if he was dead then it could only be a good thing because now he _was _with Hermione, not just a painting who'd pretended to be her and wasn't even real anyway. But sometimes she misses him, only of course she can't miss him because paintings don't feel. Or at lest their not supposed to.

And the years pass, and she still never sees anyone and she doesn't know if that's because he sent them away once too often or if there is simply no one left to come. But the house begins to creek more, the draft that was always there becomes a breeze that rattles through old house and makes it moan. And slowly the roof begins to rot, so that it leaks in bad weather and drips down onto her canvas- dusty from the years of neglect, and then even more slowly the paint begins to wash away.

She doesn't know really if she's washing away with it. Doesn't know if there's even anything to wash away. Anything real. She's just a painting after all. And she wasn't in love with him, because paintings can't feel-but sometimes (and she can't see now because her eyes have run away) she can almost see why she should have. Why she did.

But she is not Hermione Granger. Not even the shadow or memory of her. Not that she ever told him that. Couldn't bear to see the look on his face if she did. She is just a painting. Just paint and canvas and brush work and water and bits of magic thrown in to make her seem alive. Yes just a picture, just a painting just an impression of life- and she's really not even that any more from the ruin and wear of the years in the wind and dust and rain

just a picture. Just a portrate of a girl who was once alive.

But Oh - She was so much more than that when he looked at her.

-fin-

hope you liked it! Frankie


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